


A Handful of Smoke

by flightinflame



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Alternative Universe - Dragons, Autistic David Haller, Charles Xavier in a Wheelchair, Dragon Riders, Dragons, Gen, Kid Fic, Protective Erik
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame
Summary: Nina finds a strange egg in the garden.It is green and blue, and like nothing she's ever seen before. She doesn't know what kind of bird it will be, but she's determined to take care of whatever hatches.
Relationships: David Haller & Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Nina Gurzsky & David Haller, Nina Gurzsky & Erik Lehnsherr
Comments: 50
Kudos: 40
Collections: X-Salon Challenge Works





	1. Hatchling

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a short oneshot for the X-Salon AU Prompt: Raising Dragons. I fear it may gain far more chapters. Let me know if you'd like to see more.

_In most universes, there comes a day when Nina has to face a heartbreaking truth. A time when she is around six or seven, and forced to come to terms with the simple, devastating fact that dragons do not exist. The story that follows is not set in one of those universes._

It started with an egg. 

The thing was, Nina was a very independent child, despite her age. Growing up in the mansion, with vast grounds to roam around and a brother to play with - she was happy. She was secure in her fathers' love, and she took the lead in games, dragging David out on adventures, or settling down beside him, covered in squirrels.

Nina had been five when she and her Papa had moved to Westchester, with the man he'd befriended in the war and his two year old son. She had watched with wide eyes as her Papa changed the house for her new Daddy, adding in slopes made of metal (which made the best slides), and a pulley-lift, and smoothing over ledges. He had made Daddy a really cool chair, which had wheels, because Daddy had fallen from his dragon, and his legs didn't work. 

Her Daddy couldn't fight any more, but he was the best at story telling ever, and he was clever and could show her pictures in his head. And Papa would let her help him when he made new armour for soldiers. He wanted to stay, told her keeping their family safe was the most important thing to him. She believed him, but she was still curious about what else would happen, dreamed of being a soldier, going on adventures, riding a dragon.

David followed her around the grounds, and curled up beside her when he was sad. David didn't really like other people - they were too loud, and too confusing. But he liked Nina, and he liked the birds she would call down from the trees, and the foxes that would cuddle up at her feet. She thought he was the best little brother ever, and got really angry when other people didn't think so. She'd heard Daddy's friends say nasty things about David and Nina would have got her creature-friends to protect him, but Daddy had yelled at them anyway, and those friends of Daddy’s didn't come around after that.

But the story began with an egg.

Nina was the one to find the egg, when she was seven and her little brother was four. The egg was settled beneath a holly bush, and Nina had carefully noticed where it was, then looked around for its mummy or daddy. It was different from other birds' eggs she had seen.

It was blue, with green swirls, or maybe green with blue swirls. It was quite big, about the size of her fist. It was just on the ground, rather than in a nest, which was a concern for her, because that meant it might have fallen. Nina tried not to worry, taking David to catch some earthworms for the hedgehog family, who had just had four hoglets and needed help with food. 

The egg was still there the next day. 

Nina wriggled under the holly bush, carefully picking up the little egg and cuddling it to her chest, to try and keep it warm. She didn't want to worry Daddy or Papa, and she was scared if she talked to them they might say she had to leave the little bird, in case its mummy came back. But she didn't think it had a mummy.

She carried it very carefully back to the house, and across to her room, and put it down in her sock drawer so that it would be cosy, and then she went to play with David.

She kept sneaking back, to look at the egg, just in case it was beginning to hatch. She worked out what she would need to feed a baby bird, because if it didn't have a mummy that meant she was in charge of it.

She tried very hard not to think about the egg, and the baby bird growing inside, because Daddy could read thoughts and she wasn't sure if she'd been naughty, only she really couldn't face leaving the baby on its own, when it needed love. She was going to take care of the bird that hatched from it. When she was out in the garden, far enough away that Daddy couldn't listen unless he tried to, she tried to think of nice names for baby birds. Maybe Feathers, or Petal, or Branch. She frowned, thinking through the names of other birds that she knew, trying to decide what might be the best.

But then, if she was going to have a baby bird to raise indoors, it might need a name from indoors rather than outside. Maybe Fork, or Shoelace, or Cobweb. She would have to decide that, because a baby bird's mummy should decide, and that bird had no mummy other than her.

That night, they had pasta and spaghetti sauce for dinner, and Papa laughed and told her she made more of a mess than the dragon he'd rode in the war. She giggled, and squirmed as he cleaned the sauce from her hair, and from her forehead, and some that had got on her elbow. She liked it when Papa and Daddy laughed about the war. Sometimes they didn't, and sometimes they were sad. But they said that she and David made things all better.

She went back to her bedroom, to check on the baby bird. She saw there was a crack in the egg, so she picked it up, and sat down on the bed, her legs crossed. She put a cushion on her lap, and concentrated, watching. She'd seen a few eggs hatch before but this was new. It was softer than most bird eggs, and the little rip made the egg shell distort.

She stared, lifting it up, so she could see the egg tooth with which it was ripping into the shell, tearing it open. It squeaked softly, and she felt all warm and happy inside. It squeaked again, and the gap in the egg shell didn't get any bigger.

She was worried the baby bird was stuck. She hesitated, lifting the egg up to her mouth, and biting on it very gently, taking the top of it between her teeth, the way that she'd seen mummy squirrels help their babies get out of the little bags they were born in. 

It felt funny in her mouth, strangely rubbery, but she carefully pulled at it, until it split. She lifted her head up, and spat away the bit that had torn away, sticking her tongue out at the taste, and looked down at her baby bird.

Her baby bird was very funny looking. It was still tiny, its wings paper thin and devoid of feathers.

It had a tail, which didn't seem normal. She helped it out from the egg, and lifted the cushion up to her face for a closer look. It wiggled, and yawned.

Baby birds normally had beaks. This baby bird had a snout, like a crocodile, with sharp teeth. She frowned, reaching out to pat it, looking around the room for a name, because baby birds needed a name as soon as they were born.  
"Sock." Nina said, as firmly and determinedly as she could. The baby bird wiggled again, and yawned, and made a soft squeaking sound, and some smoke drifted out of its nostrils.

Nina looked down at Sock, and realised that this was definitely not a baby bird. Daddy said that baby dragons were regulated by the army, all of them collected and controlled by the military.

But Sock was a dragon. She didn't want her baby to be taken away. She didn't even know if it was a boy or a girl dragon, too little so far to have developed a crest.

She closed her eyes, and called out for her Daddy and Papa, and let Sock climb up her arm. Sock settled on her shoulder, and tried to nip her ear.  
"Bad! Don't bite." She crossed her arms, and tried to glare, the way she did when David was being naughty. The dragon on her shoulder wiggled away without a care.

Papa opened her door, with Daddy beside him, and she knew the moment they both saw the dragon.  
"Nina-"

"You can't give them away." She whispered. "Sock's mine."

Papa and Daddy had one of their silent conversations, where their faces made lots of funny shapes, and the whole time she patted Sock, wondering if they could run away together or something. She didn't want her baby to join the army! Not when Papa and Daddy got sad about it sometimes, and they were _grown ups_ , they were meant to be good at the army. A baby shouldn’t be there.

It was Daddy who spoke.  
"Alright, Nina. It can stay here for now."

And that was how Sock the dragon came into their lives.


	2. Libraries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks goes to my friend Ethics, for helping look over this story and letting me know what she thinks, and to my two smallest readers, who have sent me some lovely fanart they've made! This update is for you!  
> Also thanks to Irene A Donovan, whose art is at the start of this chapter.

Nina wanted to take good care of Sock. She knew that baby dragons should have dragon parents, who would teach them how to fly and how to hunt and how to do all the things that dragons are meant to do. But Sock only had her.

It was a lot of responsibility for someone so small, but she was going to get it right. She had decided she was Sock’s mummy, because Sock needed a mummy. So she had to look after Sock, and make sure that Sock was happy and healthy.

Nina knew all about looking after baby birds. She’d found birds before that had fallen from their nests, and helped them back. She’d watched mummy birds feed their babies with worms that they had dug up for them, and seen how they’d carefully remove waste from their nests. Nina felt pretty sure that if she was asked to tell someone how to look after a baby bird, she could talk about it for at least an hour.

But she didn’t know how to look after baby dragons at all.

Which was a problem. A big problem, because she wanted Sock to be well looked after. She sat down on her bed, giggling a little as Sock ran down her arm, to her hand, and then scrabbling back up again. 

She yawned a little. She was very tired, and Sock looked tired too, with droopy wings and a tail that wasn’t as swishy as it had been earlier. She carefully carried Sock back to the drawer, and put Sock down, and then frowned. 

Baby dragons breathed smoke, but they didn’t breathe fire, so she didn’t think that Sock would accidentally set fire to her drawer… but she didn’t want a big fire to happen and burn the whole house down.

She frowned, and looked up when her Papa knocked on the door, holding out a metal bowl.

“Here,” he said gently. “You can put Sock in there, and put some fabric around him-”

“I don’t know if Sock is a boy dragon or a girl dragon yet, Papa,” she corrected, and her Papa nodded, and helped her make sure that the bowl was full of comfortable fabric - a nightdress that she’d got paint on, and a shirt that had been torn when she’d climbed up a tree.

She carefully scooped Sock up, and popped them down in the bowl. She watched as Sock walked in circles three times, then curled up, with their tail tucked up under their chin. She patted Sock’s side with her fingertips.  
“Goodnight Sock.” She looked up at her Papa. “Goodnight, Papa.”

“Goodnight, Nina.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Sweet dreams.”

She closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

***

Nina woke up to find that there was a dragon biting on the very tip of her nose. 

She had been having a nice dream, about climbing all the way to the top of the tallest tree in the garden, and so the sudden bite to her nose made her jump, and sit up, and flail her hands at her face.

And then when she was awake, she saw that Sock had landed in her lap, wings drawn up and head down, tail curled up anxiously.

“I’m sorry, Sock,” Nina said sincerely, picking the little dragon up and putting them on her shoulder. “You startled me.” 

The dragon climbed up onto her head like a hat, to be as tall as possible, while Nina went to the wardrobe to look in the mirror. The very tip of her nose was a little red, but Sock looked very stylish on her head. Very carefully, she pulled on a dress and her fuzzy purple jumper, and that whole time Sock stayed on her head. She giggled, going to show her brother.

She knocked on the door of David’s room, and then pushed the door open. David was sitting in bed, carefully stacking some of his toy blocks that were over on his desk. He looked up at her, and the tower of blocks wobbled. She saw the moment he noticed Sock, because his eyes went wide, and his hands reached up as though to grab the dragon baby.

Carefully, Nina scooped the dragon into her hands, and carried it over to David, showing her brother. Sock was in a wriggly mood, and kept trying to climb out and over her hands, to run off and escape. She had to keep moving one hand in front of the other, to make sure Sock didn’t jump down onto the floor and get lost.

David looked at Sock with wide eyes, carefully holding out a finger, the way she had taught him. Sock didn’t seem to mind as the finger got closer, so Nina talked to Sock as gently as she could.  
“It’s okay, this is just David, he’s really nice. He’s just going to pat your neck…” 

Sock stayed still for a few moments to permit the patting, and then tried to climb up her shirt, sharp claws catching on the fabric.

Nina helped Sock back onto her shoulder, then went for breakfast. She looked over at her Daddy and Papa, who were eating turkey bacon.

“Papa, can I have some for Sock?”

“Do dragons eat turkey bacon?” He asked, but he cut her off a little bit of his. She took it, putting it on the table in front of her drink.

“Thank you, Papa.”

Sock jumped down to eat it, sharp teeth chewing it up. Once it was gone, Sock curled up into a little ball.

Nina frowned, not quite sure how to carry a sleepy dragon.  
“Papa, I need a bigger pocket.”

“That’s okay. I’ll make you something.” Papa promised. She nodded, cuddling Sock to her chest, and then turned to her Daddy.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Nina?”

“Can I use the library please? I want to read all about dragons.”

Her Daddy nodded. “I’ve got to go and do some work first, but I can help you after lunch, and you can look in the morning if you can manage without me?”

“I can!” She promised. She loved her Daddy’s library. It was a big room, full of books of all different sizes. Some of them, especially the ones on the lower shelves, were for her and David, picture books and stories, but above that there were all kinds of old books, coated in dust that made her sneeze. Some of them had gold lettering on, or pretty ink pictures in.

“Go and look then, but be careful,” her Daddy reminded her. So she went to the library, pushing open the heavy door with her elbow so she didn’t drop Sock. She put Sock down on the floor, and started to examine the spines of the books, for anything about dragons. She found a book that Daddy had read to David, about a friendly dragon that could talk, and a book about dragons that was as wide as her hand. She opened it up and found that had lots of big words, like “aerodynamic” and “corrosive” and “membrane”. She thought that book might be one she had to ask Daddy to help her with.

She kept looking. This was a whole room full of books, and she was sure that somewhere there would be a good book.

Finally, she found one with pictures of dragons in, and explanations that she could understand. She put it down on the floor carefully, excited to read it.

She looked over to where she had left Sock.

Sock had gone.

“Sock?” She called out, looking around. “Sock?”

The library was a very big room, and Sock was a small dragon, so she was scared she might have lost Sock forever. She felt panic bubble up inside of her, like if you shook a bottle of fizzy drink. But she couldn’t panic. Because Sock needed her to be brave, and to find her. Because if she was going to be Sock’s mummy, she had to look after Sock when Sock was scared.

She tried to be sensible, and search through the room carefully. There wasn’t much on the higher shelves, because her Daddy couldn’t reach those. So she could look there quickly.

She was looking around on the third bookcase, when she saw something move. Standing on her very tiptoes, she could see Sock on the top of a shelf. 

She remembered Papa telling her that dragons liked being high up, back where they’d lived before, when they’d spoken a different language and she hadn’t liked Papa’s commander very much. He had told her stories of wild dragons up on mountaintops, where the army had taken them to use for battle, until there were no more dragons to be found in the wild.

So Sock had gone up high,because baby dragons liked climbing, were born with big claws. But they weren’t very good at flying yet, because their wings were very small. The bookcase was too tall for her to climb, because she didn’t have claws. Sock was moving closer to the edge, and she was scared in case Sock fell down to the floor.

She thought quickly, and took off her fuzzy jumper, holding it between her arms like a soft cushion.  
“Sock, come down!” She called, hoping that Sock would listen to her, making sure she was standing beneath where Sock was perched.

There was a pause, and she was getting scared, trying to use her thoughts to call up to her Daddy. But Sock got closer to the edge of the shelf, and then did a little jump, tumbling through the air.

Sock landed on the cushion, and yawned, showing off pointed teeth.

She patted Sock’s head with a fingertip, and sat down with the book she had found. She was determined to learn all about dragons.  
“Here, I’ll read to you.” She promised Sock, as she opened the first page. Sock snuggled down onto the jumper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! All comments gratefully received, and if you have any suggestions do let me know.


	3. Learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to wish a special someone a happy birthday, and to say I have got the single cutest (and tastiest) piece of fanart ever here: [A biscuit stop motion animation of the first chapter!](https://flightinflame.tumblr.com/post/617639690786488320/oh-wow-this-is-so-amazing-thank-you)
> 
> Thank you also to InsertSthMeaningful for giving this chapter a quick once over for comprehension!  
> (Some dragon advice taken from Dragonology's Bringing up Baby Dragons: A guide for Beginners)

Nina took her job of being Sock's mummy very seriously. She hadn't met baby dragons before, but she'd met lots of baby birds, and baby squirrels, and hoglets, and other small animals. So she was fairly sure she could work out how to help, but it was good to read about them from an expert, so that she could be the very best mummy she was able to be. She knew that her daddy had lots of books about raising children, and he was the best daddy ever (Papa was the best papa ever, and he didn't need books, but that was okay too).

She patted Sock with one hand as she opened the book, grinning as the first page contained emergency advice for calming down excited baby dragons. This felt like the kind of information she might need, so she read it out loud. Some of the words were still quite big, but this was for emergency information, so she thought she could bother her daddy. 

She concentrated very hard, her face going scrunchy.  
 _Daddy?_

 _Yes, Nina?_ Her daddy asked in her mind, and he didn't sound angry at her for asking for help, and that was good. Daddy said you should always ask for help if you needed it, even though sometimes grown-ups were too busy to help right away.

 _I'm reading a book about dragons, and it says i-n-o-p-p-o-r-t-u-n-e. Inopportune?_ She sounded out the word carefully, the way her daddy had shown her to do if it was a new and big word she didn't know. _What's that word mean?_

 _It means it's at a bad time,_ Daddy explained carefully. _Are you going to be okay with reading your book on your own? I can help you later if that's okay, but I need to do some work now._

 _Okay, Daddy!_ She finished reading the emergency instructions, and there was nothing else there that she didn't understand, so that was good. She felt like she would be able to do this.

"Thank you Mister Drake," she said to the picture of the man with a funny moustache, who had written the book and apparently raised a dragon back before they were all brought up by the army. 

The emergency advice said that if a dragon baby was being silly and had too much energy, you should tickle its tummy until it purrs. That sounded like a good idea, and something that Sock would like. It was something her Papa did with her when she had too much energy and just wanted to spend all day running around the gardens and climbing up trees. But then Papa would help her climb trees, and laugh as she swung her weight up into the branches. Papa was good at climbing trees, and that might be helpful if Sock got lost in the gardens.

The thought of Sock getting lost in the gardens was a very scary idea, because Sock was a very little dragon, and the gardens were big. And even if the gardens were fun for adventures, she didn't want to lose Sock when Sock was still so small.

Sock was nuzzling against her tummy, and she wondered if Sock was trying to tickle her. She was sure that Sock was the very very cleverest baby dragon that there had ever been, so if belly tickles made dragons feel better then Sock was probably trying to look after her.

She lifted Sock up onto her hand, trying to examine Sock's eye ridges, and compare them to the ones in the pictures. It was hard, trying to count the scales up from the dragon's eyelids, when Sock was being wiggly. but she eventually decided that it was an odd number of scales - five. That combined with the pattern of scales across Sock's nose, and the number of bumps on Sock's tummy, showed that Sock was a boy dragon.

That was really very very exciting news, but it wasn't an emergency, so she decided she would tell Daddy and Papa and David later.

Her tummy did another guilty wriggle. She loved Sock more than anything, but she also loved David more than anything, and she didn't want David to feel like he was being left out because she was busy playing with Sock.

She flicked through the book a little more, checking what Sock should be eating - a mixture of different kinds of meat, with some insects if Sock could catch them - and reading about dragon care - that it was important to keep the dragon infant warm and dry, and not to let them play in the snow. That was okay, it was springtime, so it wouldn't snow for a long time. Looking at the pictures in the books, by the time it was next snowing, Sock would be taller than David.

She paused, patting Sock and moving him onto her shoulder.  
"We've got to find David, okay? We can play with him, but you have to be nice, okay? You can't just jump at him, you have to let him pat you first, or he'll be frightened."

Sock gave a sad little snuffle of smoke, and Nina pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. "I know, you're a good dragon. You wouldn't scare him, would you?" She smiled, patting along the pretty blue and green and purple scales. Sock was colourful, like the feathers on a starling, or the iridescence of a beetle. He was definitely the prettiest dragon ever, and Nina felt very proud having him sat on her shoulder as they left the library, Nina's arms carrying her book on baby dragons.

 _Daddy, I'm going to play with David until lunch time, then can we read some of the big dragon books?_ Nina asked, because her Daddy didn't like it when she ran off on adventures and didn't tell him where she'd gone.

 _That sounds good. David is sitting in your playroom with your Papa,_ Daddy told her, and she headed off to find them.

David was sat on the floor of the playroom, with various coloured bricks spread out in front of him. He was putting them into different orders - at the moment, he was putting them into colour, with Papa watching him closely. When they were all arranged in order of colour, he started to put all the triangles together, and all of the circles, and all of the squares. 

When he'd done that, he looked up at her and waved, and she waved back - she hadn't said hello before, because she didn't want to frighten him, but he was aware she was here now.

She sat down on the floor.

Sock immediately jumped down from her shoulder.

The book had shown pictures of dragons in flight, their wide wings spread out as they soared on the slightest breeze. Only Sock was only a baby dragon, and his wings were still small and stubby, so rather than managing to rise high up into the air, he flopped to the ground, rolling up into a little ball and giving an angry chirrup at the nearest block of wood.

The block of wood didn't give an answer, which seemed to upset Sock more. Sock was already a bit embarrassed, Nina supposed, because he had fallen over, and now the wood was being rude and not answering. So Sock jumped at the wood, tiny little teeth clattering against it as small sharp claws scrabbled across the surface.

After a few moments, Sock managed to pull the block over, and it landed on top of him. There was a moment's pause, before the annoyed chirrups came back, louder and more frantic than before. David watched the entire thing with big scared eyes.

Nina hesitated, feeling very small because she didn't want to upset Sock or get her fingers bitten, but she reached out and carefully picked the block up, using her fingers to wrap around Sock and turn him the right way up. 

There was a pause, where she thought Sock was angry at her, as Sock drew back and reared up slightly, going to hiss.

But then Sock smelled her hands, and moved to bump his head against her fingertips, squeaking up at her much more happily.

David looked at Sock, and then at Nina, and then back to Sock. He looked confused, flapping his hands at his sides like Sock's little wings.

"Papa?" Nina asked. "How do you sign dragon?"  
Papa hesitated, going over to the book that Daddy had with all the different signs written in it, and then showing her. 

"You put your hands up to your face, and wiggle your fingers like this." Papa demonstrated, and Nina copied, and after a few moments David copied too, giggling a little as he did it.

"Thank you, Papa." She smiled. "I'm going to read with Daddy in the library after lunch, and then I want to go on an adventure in the gardens with David and Sock."

Her Papa considered, then nodded.   
"Okay, but you have to be careful, we don't want Sock to get lost." He hesitated, and twisted his hands around, calling over some metal from a shelf and making a small metal necklace which he carefully put over Sock's head, so that it wouldn't fall off. "There, then we can find Sock if Sock runs away."

"Okay!" Nina nodded, patting Sock who was wriggling and trying to pull off his shiny new necklace. "It's okay. This way we won't lose you and we can play outside!"

Papa nodded. "Well, your adventure can't last too long, okay? Daddy and I have some friends coming over for dinner."

"Okay Papa..." She paused. There were some of her Papa's friends she didn't like very much, like the old Commander, but they weren't here now where they lived. She hoped it was Daddy's friends.

"Uncle Hank and Uncle Logan," her Papa said, and she beamed up at him excitedly. Because those were the best ones of her Daddy's friends. Uncle Hank was a doctor, and he was really interested in animals, and in listening to Nina talk about all of her animal friends. Uncle Logan had been a soldier, and he'd apparently rescued Daddy when he'd been caught by bad people after he'd fallen off of his dragon, and Papa had gone with them, and now they were all friends and she loved seeing them.

Uncle Logan was like Papa - he didn't fight any more, because he'd been hurt. Daddy had been hurt and his legs didn't work, but for Papa and Logan it was different. They'd been hurt, but it wasn't an outside hurt that you could see and rub better. It was an inside hurt, and Daddy said hurts like that could only be fixed with time. But that was okay, because Papa had her and David and Daddy to love him, and Uncle Logan had Uncle Hank, and the hurt was better now even if it was still there.

"I bet they'll like Sock!" Nina squealed, bouncing with excitement.

Her Papa looked at her with a serious expression and shook his head.   
"I don't think we should tell them about Sock, okay Nina? Sock can rest in your room when they're here, and then afterwards you can play with them again."

"Okay, Papa." Nina sighed. She thought her Papa was being very boring, but she thought Daddy might let her take Sock with her to dinner. So she'd ask him. She patted her dragon, and stopped him from gnawing on another of David's blocks.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] A Handful of Smoke](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718624) by [TriffidsandCuckoos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos)




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